Five Seconds
by Flight of Fancy
Summary: Ever wonder what Angel thinks about when he looses his soul?


**Rating**: PG-13, to be safe.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own them, but I like to play with them. They're like dolls. Big, murderous dolls.

**Feedback**: There is no e-mail that I enjoy getting more of.

**Author's Note**: Due to nasty case of writer's block on my _After the Happy Ending_ story, I decided to write this to shake loose the cobwebs, kill some evil plot bunnies, and find my muse. I will continue to update _AtHE_, though.

**Summary**: Ever wonder what Angel thinks as he looses his soul?

**"_You want to know why he really let me out? Because he finallygave up."_**- Angelus, _Cavalry_

**Five Seconds**

In the last few seconds of the pleasant, magick-induced fantasy, when the dream ended and Angel got a few precious, awful seconds to realize what was happening, he would have begged, if he could.

The sensation of loosing his soul had happened to him twice, although perhaps one of them didn't count. No matter, it was always the same. Like the walls were closing in on him, everything swirling in a nauseating way and if he weren't being ripped from his body he would vomit and scream and tell them to stop, please stop, he was wrong, he couldn't do this, no! But by that point, it was always too late.

He was so dizzy as the walls fell in, bile rising in his throat. There was a yanking sensation just below his navel, just like always, which had led him to ponderous, brooding thoughts on the exact location of a soul. But yanking was not a good word for it. Ripping, tearing, gouging, skinandboneandsoulgonegonegone and Angel wanted to scream but he was loosing it, couldn't feel his fingers or arms, legs and toes. Madness always came to him the last few milliseconds as he felt the agonizing pain of having the one thing that made him good and desirable ripped away. It seared him, burning like the flames of Hell.

That was what he saw when he left the Earth, or at least it had been before, during the Doximal joyride. Flashes of what he'd been through. Utter darkness and being alone until Angel begged them to come and hurt him again, make him scream, just don't leave him alone in the dark. Vampire afraid of the dark, how funny, how sick. Fire. Ice. Limbs ripped off and reattached. Twice he remembered it now. But the first time he lost his soul, pre-Hell, he had seen the worst place in the world for a vampire. Their coffin.

Below the earth, worms tunneling to get to him, had to get out, one of the only times Angelus had felt true terror. The one other time had been in a fire-lit clearing, only a few seconds too late, when the Scourge of Europe had had a light, fluffy soul gently attached to his body, with cataclysmic effects. Angel also remembered Liam, the silly, stupid, ironically innocent Irish boy and his last moments on Earth, his terror as he realized that this porcelain doll woman was going to be the one to kill him. A few terrified pleas to a God that hadn't listened and then the boy had been shoved from his body to make room for Angelus, much the same way Angel was being ripped away now.

A horrible shredding sensation and Angel knew that soon he would be flying, just as his name implied, into a little glass jar sitting a few feet away. The soul of a vampire saw Hell and fangs and dirt. Then he really was flying, into the jar and the light it suddenly contained. With a start, Angel remembered what he always forgot when he came back after loosing his soul. He remembered that no amount of tearing could make him let go completely. But the promise of that bright light, which might not be Heaven but certainly wasn't Hell, that was what made him loosen his grip. Because he remembered peace. The peace that Liam had long ago felt when the first drop of Aurelius blood flowed into his mouth. No more fighting. No more guilt. Rest. Peace. Bright and lovely. Nothing, not life or Buffy or his friends/family could compare to that. And all he had to do was let go.

_It was a matter of seconds, around five. It always was. The hero goes down, crumples into an alley or an actress or simply closes his eyes. That was all the time Angelus needed. He felt the rush as Angel left. Knew that it was probably a good thing that the Soul never remembered letting go. One more thing to brood about. Still, it struck the demon as ironic. He opened his eyes. The jar glowed, filled with Essence of Angel, He Who Let the Demon Out. Angelus would have to remember to tell Team Angel how their fearless leader had abandoned them. Save that insult for another day. A dark, evil, lunatic cackle welled up from the hollow space where the soul used to be. Just the way Angelus liked it._


End file.
